Student Name: ____________________

Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 1
What determines the amount of friction between two surfaces?

I. Forces
Try pushing a block around on a table.
What direction do you have to push in to make it move?
_____________________________________________________

If you also push down on the block, does it become harder or easier to push it
around? ___________________

Hold a block against the wall. How hard do you have to push to make it stay up?
What sort of force is holding it up? (Remember: What direction does gravity act
in? What direction does friction act in? What direction do your hand and the wall
push in? Where are the sliding surfaces in this case?)
______________________________________________________

Can you summarize what you have learned here about friction?

Think about this:

Even though friction acts parallel to sliding surfaces, the maximum
amount of friction force depends partly on the perpendicular force
holding them together.

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 2
Is friction the hero or the villain?
Now that you know a little about what friction is, let’s think about whether friction
is “good” or “bad.” You may be aware that scientists and engineers have tried for
many years to produce machines without friction. You may even have seen ads
for automotive additives that claim to eliminate friction. If you could do this, it
would mean that you could start something moving and never have to push it
again. Just like pushing someone on a swing: if you stop pushing, and they don’t
pump, the swing will eventually stop. Of course perpetual motion has never been
achieved, although a good many failed designs can be found. Scientists have
only been able to eliminate friction in some extremely unusual, extremely cold
situations. There is no practical way to do it.

1. What ways can you think of to reduce friction? Name at least three.

2. Can you think of examples from your life that use these ways of reducing
friction?

But do you want to completely eliminate friction?

3. Name at least three activities where friction is necessary.

4. Name at least three tools or objects that require friction to function.

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 3
Some Experiments with friction

Use a friction board to see how well your block slides on different surfaces.
You can try to measure the difference in a couple of ways:

1. Attach weights to the block and let the weights hang over the side of the
table. What is the minimum weight required to pull the block?

Note: this arrangement will pull

your block in the right direction This arrangement will
to slide. not work so well.

Why? That's another

"direction of forces"
problem to think about!

2. Put the block on the board and tilt it to find the minimum angle that will let the
block slide down the board. (It may be easier to measure how high the high
end of the board is when the block slides. If you also measure the length of
the board, you can calculate the angles later.)

Write down your observations and compare with other scientists.

Surface Angle when block starts to slide

Cardboard

Cork

Foam

Sandpaper

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 3
Some Experiments with friction (cont’d)

3. Now, let’s put this information together with what you just learned about how
perpendicular forces affect friction. Using the “weight method,” repeat the
experiment you just did with different weights on top of the block to change
the gravitational force pulling the block down on the table.

Your experiment should look like this:

Record your results here:

Cardboard Cork Foam Sandpaper

Weight Weight Weight Weight Weight Weight Weight Weight
on top to pull on top to pull on top to pull on top to pull

0 0 0 0

Later, you may want to make a graph showing how the weight on top
(perpendicular force) is related to the weight to pull (friction force). What do you
think such a graph would look like?

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 3
Some Experiments with friction (cont’d)

4. Finally, use the blocks to look at the difference between static and kinetic
friction. You should be able to find a combination of weights, or an angle, that
will slide the block only after you have given it a small initial tap. This tap
adds enough force to overcome static friction, and after the block has started
moving, it keeps sliding because it needs a smaller force, equal to the kinetic
friction, to keep going.

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 4
Where does all that energy go?

What happens to all that force that we keep applying to overcome friction?
Where does the energy go?

1. Try rubbing your sandpaper across the friction board, what do you notice?
Now rub it more quickly, what do you feel? What does this tell you about
friction and energy? (Hint: If you’re having trouble, think about someone
trying to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, what happens?)

2. Now, as you rub the sandpaper across the board, consider one of your
other senses. What do you sense, and what does this tell you about
friction and energy? (Hint: Consider this proverb: The squeaky wheel gets
the _____ .)

3. Now that you’ve used your sandpaper for a while, compare it to a new
piece of sandpaper, what do you notice and what does this tell you about
friction and energy?

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 5
A geometry problem: How does friction balance the force of
gravity?

Look at the force arrows (vectors) in this picture. Remember, a downward force
must be balanced by an equal upward force, and a push to one side must be
balanced by an equal push to the other side (What famous scientific law tells us
this?)

Gravity (1kg)

Friction

Table
30º

Here, we want to figure out the size of the table force and the size of the friction
force. Gravity is pulling straight down on the book, and the table is pushing up
and to the left. Friction is pushing to the right, so this should balance the leftward
push of the table. But friction is also pushing up, so friction and the table share
the job of fighting gravity! How can we figure the forces out?

Here is a list of what we need to know for sure:

1) the weight of the book (1 kg)
2) the angle of the table with the floor (30º)
3) the direction of all the forces:
a) gravity acts straight down
b) friction acts up at 30º to the floor
c) the table pushes at 90º to friction (because the table pushes perpendicular
to its surface, and friction pushes parallel to it).

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 5
A geometry problem: How does friction balance the force of gravity?
(cont’d)

Here's how we can use geometry to solve our problem:

1. Choose a scale for drawing our forces. Let's let 5 cm = 1 kg.
2. According to this scale, draw an arrow 5 cm long, straight down, to represent
the weight of the book and the force of gravity. (Use the space on the next
page.)
3. Using a protractor, draw a line at 30º to the "ground" (or 60º to the gravity
arrow).
4. Line up one side of a square corner, like the edge of a piece of paper, with
the 30º line. Slide it along the line until you find a right triangle with the gravity
arrow as the hypotenuse (long side). Trace out this triangle.
5. One side of this triangle is the friction force, and one side is the table force.
Look at the original figure to remember which is which, and which way they
point. The forces in this diagram "add up" geometrically because you can
follow all of the arrows around the triangle, back to the starting point.

Friction
right triangle

5 cm = 1 kg
30º

Table

Not to scale

6. Now, measure the lines for the friction force and the table force, and use our
scale of 5 cm = 1 kg to convert that into the magnitude of the forces. You
should have something like this:

Friction = 2.5 cm = 0.50 kg

Table = 4.3 cm = 0.87 kg

Friction
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7. Now, using the same method, solve the problem assuming that the table is at
a 45° angle and the book now weighs 2 kg.

Friction
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 Student Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________

Activity Sheet 6
Friction: Understanding Your Tortoise

1. If you could redesign your tortoise now, how would you make it travel
down the ramp more slowly?

2. Do you think that two pieces of wood rubbing together would have more or
less friction than wood rubbing against smooth metal? Why?

3. Why do you think that oil is spread on metal parts that rub against each
other (like in a car engine)?

4. Is friction good or bad for walking?

5. Friction with the air slows down a race car. How is a race car shaped to
reduce air friction?

Friction
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